Newt Gingrich is now the front runner in a discordant Republican primary process as beautiful as angry alligators mating in a swamp or birds fighting over a smeared hamburger wrapper from a fast food dumpster. One might think that troubled times at home and abroad would bring forth American citizens from great traditions of military service, public service, economics, science or notable business careers. Instead Republicans have a field of flawed candidates. If these candidates somehow managed to slip into a conference of distinguished Americans they would be seated at a table by themselves in the corner of the banquet hall fighting over rolls and butter like a flock or voracious grackles. What is the cause of such low brow Republican candidates and a selection process which seems to go against our better nature? Why an ugly bird like Gingrich? 

The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased."
- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Truth be told, I haven't been feeling the Thanksgiving spirit. Looking outward, it is difficult to see past the smoldering economic rubble that fills the lives of so many of those dear to me from my own tenuous outpost on the edge. With no plausible course of action on the horizon to bring appropriately wide-scale relief, let alone begin the rejuvenation and rebuilding that our system and society so desperately need, the call to dig deeper and muster up some tritism to serve as my offering on the alter of national habit has mostly just served to highlight a situation so grave for so many people that reveling in an annual orgy of gluttonous overconsumption simply feels a microcosm for so many of our current ills.

I'm grateful for Black Friday and cramming more victuals down my gullet in one sitting than many households (including my own) should responsibly make last for an entire week in the current economy! Yay.

So it was, under a dark cloud, that I wandered the internets ... sampling the fluff-headed bullshit offered up by the pretty people, self-centered fluff from those who's biggest concern in life is sports, and obligatory self-absolving highlights of whatever local groups spent their day providing a once-annual decent meal to ever growing ranks of the poors. Not much of a silver lining in sight. At Fire Dog Lake, Dakine manages to one-up my malaise by missing the point entirely.

Clearly the time had come to move past Thanksgiving 2011.

Republican Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann made an appearance on Jimmy Fallon's late night show on NBC on Monday November 21st. The Fallon show's studio band, The Roots, introduced Bachmann with the 1985 song by the band Fishbone titled "Lyin Ass B*tch. Prior to the performance, the Roots' drummer, Questlove, tweeted that the listening audience should listen closely to the song to be played since the drummer was not going to mention the title. Those unaware of the tune were instructed to ask around if they remained clueless after hearing the tune. Following the performance, Questlove said that the song was the perfect introduction for Bachmann. Instructions were left for purchase of the song on iTunes. Questlove, who is also the bandleader said the song was a "tongue in cheek and spur-of the moment choice".

On NPR tonight, commentators were saying the $40 billion cut back in the Department of Defense's 2013 budget would require the planning to start soon. Wrong. It will  require immediate actions. Like cancelling contracts next month.

To save $40 billion in 2013 the DOD has got to not buy things. Those not-bought things will be things that were supposed to have been built either under contracts already signed or ones in the late stages of procurement